Research and Administrative Staff
Ruth Baron, R.N., B.Sc.N., P.H.N.
Nurse Researcher and Project Manager>
(916) 734-7878
ruth.baron@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
Ruth Baron has been at the Center since 2002. She is a project manager and nurse researcher working in the areas of patient quality indicator validation. Ruth obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing as well as her Public Health Nursing certificate from the University of Toronto . She has been involved in several studies involving nurse abstraction and has worked on collaborative projects with several partners, developing and writing many tools and guidelines for a validation pilot project to improve the quality of patient care in the hospital population. Ruth is working to try and improve outcomes, and identify areas of prevention so that the quality of care can be improved on an ongoing basis.
Colleen Cameron 
Analyst I
(916) 734-6340
cicameron@ucdavis.edu
Colleen Cameron serves as a project manager for ongoing research projects and the CHPR Health Services Research Seminar Series. She provides support for research grant proposals and applications. Colleen assists with editing, setting up spreadsheets and provides various types of administrative assistance.
David Chin
Graduate Student Researcher
(916) 734-4793
dlchin@ucdavis.edu
David, a PhD student in the Graduate Group in Epidemiology, has been at the Center since 2008. His research focuses on iatrogenic infection prevention and healthcare quality measurement. His primary emphases are the effect of Clostridium difficile infection and treatment on patient outcomes and the development of quality indicators using administrative data. His other research interests include the impact of state policy on health outcomes. He holds an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California Santa Cruz.
Carolyn Coleman 
Financial Manager
(916) 734-4082
cmcoleman@ucdavis.edu
Carolyn joined the Center in 2004 and has served as the Center’s Financial Manager since 2005. She is responsible for providing comprehensive financial oversight and support for the Center in the areas of fiscal management, expenditure control, compliance, and contract and grant administration from pre-award through post-award and closeout.
Carolyn has a BS in Business Administration-Finance from CSUS.
Dionne Evans Dean, B.S., M.H.A. 
Project Coordinator
(916) 734-5766
dmevans@ucdavis.edu
Dionne joined the Center in 2006. Currently, Dionne serves as a Senior Project Coordinator, charged with administration and delivery of randomized control trials. Her experience involves recruiting and training community health educators and research assistants, screening and enrolling patients, and database management. She served as coordinator to two multisite studies: the Cancer Health Empowerment for Living without pain (Ca-HELP) study funded by the American Cancer Society and the Colorectal Cancer Interactive Multimedia Computer Program (CRC IMCP) study funded by the National Cancer Institute. Dionne holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from UC Davis and a Masters in Health Administration from the University of Southern California, Sacramento campus. Prior to her work at the Center, Dionne worked as a project assistant for UCSF’s Institute for Health and Aging as a contractor with the California Department of Public Health.
Gisela Escalera 
Community Health Program Representative
(916) 734-2877
gisela.escalera@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
Gisela joined the Center as a Health Coach in 2009. She is bilingual, and delivers telemedicine and telephonic patient education in both English and Spanish.
Gisela holds a Master of Social Work degree. Her previous work experience was in the areas of employment services, mental health, and school social work.
Teresa Farley, B.A. 
Management Services Officer
(916) 734-4665
tlfarley@ucdavis.edu
Teresa joined the center in 2004 and brings over 16 years of project and operations management. She currently serves as the Center Management Service Officer providing leadership for the center, managing various research projects and the center daily operations. Teresa holds a bachelors of Arts in Child Development with a minor in Spanish and is currently working on her Masters of Science in Counselor Education at CSUS.
Her current research interests include health care quality, healthcare and prevention in underserved populations, nurse to patient ratios and decision making about hormonal therapy for breast cancer survivors. Teresa is especially interested in community based research, working in collaboration with a variety of providers, community partners and schools to reach underserved and marginalized populations including non-native English speakers. She is bilingual, reading, writing and speaking Spanish fluently.
Dustin Gottfeld
Research Assistant
(916) 734-4615
dustin.gottfeld@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
Dustin works as a Research Assistant on a number of research studies, such as Colorectal Cancer Interactive Multimedia Computer Programs and Activating Messages to Enhance Primary Care Practice. Both studies endeavor to educate patients and improve clinician-patient communications through the use of computer interventions. Dustin meets with patients to screen and enroll them as research subjects and conduct research interventions. He studied molecular and cellular biology and earned his Bachelors of Science at UC Davis in Cell Biology.
He has experience in both clinical and laboratory research, including research in Emergency Medicine, metabolomics, and pharmaceutical clinical research.
Suzy Hale 
Financial / Admin Assistant
(916) 734-2818
suzette.hale@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
Suzy is a UC Davis veteran, bringing over 27 years of UC Davis and UC Davis Health System experience to her Center role as Financial and Administrative Assistant.
Julia Huerta, M.P.H. 
Research Assistant
(916) 734-8542
jkalexander@ucdavis.edu
Julia joined the Center in 2010 as a Research Assistant for the study Activating Messages to Enhance Primary Care Practice. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from UW-Madison in Psychology and Child Development, where she worked on several research studies at the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention and the Child Emotions Lab. She recently received her Masters in Public Health from UC-Davis with a focus on epidemiology. Julia is interested in the etiology of depression in adolescence and hopes to continue working in a career focused on community mental health.
Lizette Macias, B.S. 
Research Assistant
(916) 734-2399
lizette.macias@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
Lizette joined the Center in September 2010 as a Research Assitant. She is bilingual and works with the Colorectal Cancer study doing recruitment and interventions. Her background is in Health sciences and community health education. She has experience working with the Latino Community throughout Sacramento.
Helene Margolis, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
(916) 734-7412
helene.margolis@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
Dominique Ritley, M.P.H. 
Research Analyst
(916) 734-2681
dritley@ucdavis.edu
Dominique Ritley joined the Center as a research analyst in 2006. Her experience in health policy is most recently applied to a project with the California Department of Managed Health Care, Office of Patient Advocate to evaluate and recommend new measures for inclusion in California's Healthcare Quality Report Card. She also participated in the California Health Benefits Review Program providing medical effectiveness and public health analysis of California legislation impacting health benefits.
Dominique received her MPH in public health policy and administration from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Mauricio Rodriguez
Community Health Program Representative
(916) 734-3161
mauricio.rodriguez@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
Mauricio has been working for the Center of Healthcare Policy and Research as a Health Coach since October 2010. He’s bicultural, bilingual, and delivers telemedicine education to patients in both English and Spanish.
Mauricio is currently working on a Master of Public Health degree at Drexel University. His previous appointment with UC Davis was with the Department of Psychiatry working on the Men’s Health and Aging Project researching depression.
Laura Bates Sterner 
CHPR Analyst
Associate Managing Editor
Journal of General Internal Medicine
(916) 734-7918
lbsterner@ucdavis.edu
Laura Bates Sterner came to the Center in late January of 2007 and assumed her current role in July 2007. She brings a variety of relevant experience to the Center.
Laura is responsible for the Center's communications, including print and internet. She is a member of the CHPR's Grants Development team. Laura also provides assistance as needed to the Director and Management Services Officer, and handles a variety of special projects including events planning and management.
Currently, she also functions as an Associate Managing Editor of the Journal for General Internal Medicine.
Daniel J. Tancredi, Ph. D. 
Assistant Professor (In Residence) of Pediatrics
(916) 734-3293
djtancredi@ucdavis.edu
Daniel Tancredi joined the Center in 2002, after gaining extensive experience in the design, implementation and analysis of health services and epidemiological research at Rush University Medical Center. Formally trained as a mathematical statistician at the University of Illinois at Chicago, his research interests include effective study designs and analysis plans for observational and experimental studies. He has particular interest in the analysis of correlated data, as arise in clinic-randomized trials, settings with repeated measurements and surveys that use complex probability sampling techniques.
In 2007 Daniel Tancredi accepted a faculty appointment in the UC Davis School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. A large part of his new role continues to be collaboration with investigators at the Center, where his faculty office is located.
Benjamin Timmons 
Information Systems
(916) 734-7413
bwtimmons@ucdavis.edu
Ben has worked in Academic Technology Support since 1991. Since 1998, he has focused on providing support for a number of research projects, some with national scope. Ben works with research investigators and staff to devise systems and resources to meet the qualitative and quantitative needs of each project.
Ben is increasingly focused on data, workstation and network security. Protecting data integrity, especially Patient Health Information (PHI) is of utmost importance, given both Federal mandates like HIPPA and the increase in healthcare data breaches. Techniques, such as workstation security, full-disk, file-based and email encryption increase this security
Prior to joining UC Davis in 2000, Ben worked at Boston College focusing on academic support and two national community healthcare research projects. Before that Ben worked at Simmons College, where he helped to form the Microcomputer Support Center and implement PC-based educational technology as well as the first PC-based network on campus.
Guibo Xing, Ph. D. 
Senior Statistician
(916) 734-6895
gbxing@ucdavis.edu
Guibo joined the Center as a statistician in March 2003. He has been providing statistical support primarily to faculties, fellows and residents from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He has used his statistical skills of survival analysis and categorical data analysis on various research projects, including Association of Cancer Risks with Obstetrical Delivery, Trauma during Pregnancy and Neonatal Outcome, and Trends of Hysterectomy Incidence, Type, and Complications. Databases that he uses for those studies include OSHPD hospital discharge data, infant birth and death certificates, and California Cancer Registry data. He also had experience doing econometric analysis using models such as time-series models, panel data models, count data models, selection models, hurdle models and two-part models.
Pat Zrelak, Ph.D., C.N.R.N., C.N.A.A., B.C. 
Administrative Nurse Researcher
(916) 734-8931
pazrelak@ucdavis.edu
Pat joined the center in 2006. She currently works on the Patient Safety Indicator (PSI) Project sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Pat holds a PhD in Epidemiology from UC Davis as well as a MS in Health Science and BS in Nursing. She is the administrative nurse for the UC Davis Stroke Program, and has over 25 years of experience in healthcare, primarily in management and education. Pat is board certified in Advanced Nursing Administration (CNNA, BC) and is a Certified Neuroscience Registered Nurse (CNRN). Research interests include stroke and dementia.
Besides working at UC Davis, Pat holds a faculty position at Samuel Merritt College where she teaches several courses including Research Methods and Biostatistics & Epidemiology.
